Over the past several years, information technology (IT) has seen a tremendous increase in performance of electronic equipment, coupled with a geometric decrease in floor space to house the equipment. Further, increased performance requirements have led to increased energy usage, which has resulted in increased heat dissipation within an already-crowded floor space. For example, the rate of increase of heat density for communications equipment was 13% annually from 1992 through 1998, at which time it increased to 28%, and is projected to continue to increase. As a result, data centers are demanding better thermally managed products that have good computing performance coupled with good thermal performance. Thus, there is a need to design electronic equipment with better thermal characteristics.